File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (17972331630).jpg

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo17amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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6 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL delicate skeleton of a swift-running type of dinosaur, with long, slender limbs, a very long tail, a hand provided with long, very slender fingers termi- nating in sharply recurved claws, a small, delicately formed head with pointed, recurved teeth. On its arrival at the Museum this skeleton was very carefully studied by the present writer, who reached the conclusion that this little dinosaur was same family of swift runners as the supposed "bird robber," although it cannot be regarded as a direct descend- ant. The first remains of this more recent animal, one of the most extraor- dinary dinosaurs ever discovered, were found near Denver, Colorado, in 1889, and came into the hands of Professor 0. C. Marsh, of Yale University, for de- scription. This specimen consisted of the bones of the hind foot, which were
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This complete skeleton of the "ostrich mimic" dinosaur, Struthiomimus (of much more recent geologic age than Ornitholestes), was discovered by an American Museum expedition in 1914. after a search pro- longed through a dozen years in the Upper Cretaceous dinosaur fields of northern Montana and southern Alberta. Only parts of skeletons had been found previously, and the skull and fore limb had never been seen. Study of these threw an entirely new light on the life habits of this type of dinosaur, and made un- tenable the old theory regarding the bird-robbing propensities of Ornitholestes. The skeleton was brought from Alberta to New York in the solid block of sandstone in which it had lain embedded through the ages a carnivore and preyed upon the primi- tive contemporary birds, in which the powers of flight were only partially de- veloped, and the animal was conse- quently given the name Ornitholestes, "the bird robber." The theory was that by great speed and very alert move- ments Ornitholestes was able to over- take and capture its prey. It is an interesting instance of how one discovery in science affects another that this theory of the habits of the ancient "bird robber" has become un- tenable through the subsequent discov- ery of another dinosaur, of much more recent geologic age, belonging to the placed in a manner so closely similar to that in some of the large existing birds, such as the ostriches and rheas, that the animal received the very appropriate name Ornithomimus, "the bird mimic." In fact, the foot so closely resembles that of a bird that if it had been found in a period before dinosaurs were known to science, it would certainly have been described as belonging to an ancient type of bird. Little more was known of this type of dinosaur until 1902 when a collec- tion of limb bones belonging to similar forms was secured through explora- tions along the banks of the Belly Eiver,

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